UK breaks record for highest temperature as Europe sizzles
[MGN]
LONDON (AP) – Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered amid a heat wave that has seared swaths of Europe. The national weather forecaster predicted it would get hotter still in a country ill prepared for such extremes.
The typically temperate nation is the latest to be walloped by unusually hot, dry weather that has triggered wildfires from Portugal to the Balkans and led to hundreds of heat-related deaths.
Images of flames racing toward a French beach and Britons sweltering have driven home concerns about climate change.
The U.K. Met Office registered a provisional reading of 40.2 degrees Celsius at Heathrow Airport in early afternoon Tuesday.